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[Jesus4me]

Silver Dollar City and Branson itself has to transform and keep up with to stay relevant. That does not mean it has to abandon the past. Fire in the Hole is over 50 years old and I am sure the wear and tear has taken its toll. I am hoping that the new 2024 attraction keeps the spirit and theming of its original. The park itself is in transition as many older attractions need to be replaced or revamped. The train and the Flooded mine are in this category. The park has to keep their loyal fans happy while attracting a younger generation. If FITH ends up being like Space Mountain like attraction themed to the original ride with modern animatronics, will you be upset?  The park in general needs more weatherproof attractions like updating the Flooded Mine with modern ride system and animatronics and maybe a Flying theatre. Bumper Cars wouldn't hurt either.

[KBCraig]

Barring a drastic change in my life, I won't be visiting this year, but I know a lot of people will be there to get one last ride (or 10 or 20) on FITH.

With the issues the ride has had over the last decade, I hope they have taken the time to make it work correctly (including all the storyline features), so that people leave with a good memory instead of a bad one.

[Okiebenz]

My comment earlier about going to SF instead of SDC was not meant to say SF is better than SDC or they are the same.  My point is we did in fact get SF passes this year to try it out and may or may not do SDC in 2024.  I have not yet been to SF STL but have done the one in DFW and it is a fact that if your goal is to ride a lot of different coasters and rides, then SF probably beats SDC in that regard. You will find more of them at a SF park.  If SDC's goal is to continue adding rides while removing other elements of the park, and it simply becomes about rides, then I guess at that point they start being more similar. 

Doesn't Dollywood have a FITH ride?  If so, how old is theirs?  Is it going to be decommed soon as well or have they spent the money maintaining it?  It seems to be like the perfect balance would be to keep the park as is, and add the new rides to a new section of the park.  Surely they have the room.

[sdcfan88]

Dollywoods version is Blazing Fury and it was built shortly after FITH. It had a refurb by RMC about 10 years ago. It didn't have the controversial Baldknobbers theme in favor of a more generic theme. (which I expect will probably happen with SDC FITH 2.0)
I'd say their "original" version will be safe for at least another decade.

[Lampie]

I just started a petition. Help me save Fire in the Hole! Please sign and share!

https://chng.it/8F8hDkhn

Sorry kid FITH has been on borrowed time for awhile now. 
You’d be better served trying to save Flooded Mine… oops that wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge yet

LOL, well there's still time to advocate for a worthy FM replacement. Specifically a disney quality type ride that families can actually ride together and is indoors and reliable. That's the dream at least.

I’d love to see 2 replacements for flooded mine(if they have to replace it and cant or won’t update it). A dark ride either with a similar theme to the flooded mine or a new theme. Ideally an Omnimover to help it have a high capacity, but a gentle boat ride would be good too. The second ride would be an interactive shooter. I really think they need more all ages/disabilities friendly rides.

[mg]

Dollywoods version is Blazing Fury and it was built shortly after FITH. It had a refurb by RMC about 10 years ago.

They also removed the water around 2011.

The ending effects on Blazing Fury are considerably worse than the water ending on Fire in the Hole.

[cowboy]

I would think if the water effect was that damaging, they wouldn't include it in FITH 2.0. And rumor and pictures of foundations seem to point to a water splash on the new coaster too.

Jay

[legoerosion]

I would think if the water effect was that damaging, they wouldn't include it in FITH 2.0. And rumor and pictures of foundations seem to point to a water splash on the new coaster too.

Jay

Technology and construction has changed since FiTH was built, though.

[Coaster]

I can see how this announcement was jarring for the general public. But anyone who follows this site or the theme park community closely, knew this was coming. FITH was the first roller coaster I ever rode, so it is upsetting to see it go. I've had time to process it and am hoping to make it to the park this season for one last ride.

I'm hopeful that the replacement will be something resembling the original with better technology. I don't want a cheap "gimmick", but a high quality dark ride with modern technology is something that SDC has needed for awhile. The fact that in the announcement live stream, they openly talked about baldknobbers gives me hope that they won't sanitize the story and still give us something special.

Change is inevitable. SDC has certainly changed, and while some of it is painful, it's also necessary for the park to continue evolving with the times. Some of the charm has been lost, but it's still there. SDC remains one of the best theme parks in the country. Saying it's Six Flags is laughable.

[cowboy]

A lot of good pictures of the parking lot construction on Facebook. "You know you're from Silver Dollar City If"

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=669515151638816&set=pcb.669516034972061

Jay

[Okiebenz]

I don't see how they are going to have all that done within a month.

A lot of good pictures of the parking lot construction on Facebook. "You know you're from Silver Dollar City If"

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=669515151638816&set=pcb.669516034972061

Jay

[legoerosion]

I don't see how they are going to have all that done within a month.

That's because it's a two year project.

" A few  notes on parking:

1️⃣ This is a 2-year project.

2️⃣ It's being done in phases so there will be minimal guest impact during the construction.

3️⃣ Once completed  we will have added over a thousand new spaces. And more than double the amount of cars we can park at one time! This will help get you into the City quicker and easier than ever before.

4️⃣ There will also be a SECOND turning lane added to Hwy 76 (to clear up those pesky traffic backups on nice days 😉)

5️⃣ We're also adding new tram-only and pedestrian-only tunnels along with a new traffic flow that will make parking much simpler and more pleasant.

6️⃣ Unlike pretty much any other theme park in America, our parking will still be free! (Along with paid premium options too)"

[ThemeParkFan]

My comment earlier about going to SF instead of SDC was not meant to say SF is better than SDC or they are the same.  My point is we did in fact get SF passes this year to try it out and may or may not do SDC in 2024.  I have not yet been to SF STL but have done the one in DFW and it is a fact that if your goal is to ride a lot of different coasters and rides, then SF probably beats SDC in that regard. You will find more of them at a SF park. 

Six Flags St. Louis is similar to Six Flags Over Texas (in DFW) in the fact that both are original-build Six Flags parks, meaning both are among the three parks Six Flags actually built themselves. In that sense, you're already prepared too for a park layout that's a bit of a mess. It's the opposite of SDC in that if you go uphill you're going further into the park. You'll recognize some rides from Texas (Mr. Freeze and Batman are both mirrored from their Texas counterparts, they have the DC dark ride), and it can be a good park if you like wooden coasters. I'd say it's a bit more family oriented than some of the other Six Flags parks. The water park is almost certainly better than White Water-it used to be included with admission, I'm not sure if that still stands under Six Flags' current disaster of a CEO. They've been doing a fair amount of refurbishment work over the past decade, so parts of the park look reasonably nice, but it being a Six Flags park you can anticipate neglected areas as well.

THAT SAID, the coaster collection pales in comparison to SFOT and even, I'd say, to SDC, and illustrates that more is not necessarily better. Batman, Mr. Freeze, and American Thunder are great, and while I don't know that I'd say the park has anything irredeemably awful (others may disagree), the worst coasters at SFSTL are worse than the worst coasters at SDC or Worlds of Fun. Theming is muddled and confused even by Six Flags standards.

My top recommendation is to go in with modest expectations. I like the park, and think it is a bit underrated, but SFSTL has more consistently disappointed people I've tried to share it with than any other park-less because of anything the park actually did (it has decent customer service and operations by Six Flags standards), but simply because it's more modest compared to other Six Flags parks and they were expecting something more grandiose.

[shavethewhales]

I don't see how they are going to have all that done within a month.

That's because it's a two year project.

" A few  notes on parking:

1️⃣ This is a 2-year project.

2️⃣ It's being done in phases so there will be minimal guest impact during the construction.

3️⃣ Once completed  we will have added over a thousand new spaces. And more than double the amount of cars we can park at one time! This will help get you into the City quicker and easier than ever before.

4️⃣ There will also be a SECOND turning lane added to Hwy 76 (to clear up those pesky traffic backups on nice days 😉)

5️⃣ We're also adding new tram-only and pedestrian-only tunnels along with a new traffic flow that will make parking much simpler and more pleasant.

6️⃣ Unlike pretty much any other theme park in America, our parking will still be free! (Along with paid premium options too)"

Even with knowing that it will be a two year project it seems crazy that they are doing all this with opening day coming up in a few short weeks. Looks like a couple lots are currently unusable, not to mention the main access road. I wonder if they will be using the tram road for cars this spring? Probably going to be relying on the new satellite parking lot quite a bit for the mean time.

It's quite a project. Much bigger than I had imagined, but in retrospect it was inevitable and they should have done it years ago. Parking has been such a mess since the big 2006 project but we all just sort of got used to it lol.

[Okiebenz]

Talking about SFOT, the first time I was there I avoided the New Texas Giant because it looked like it was like OR.  I do not like the restraint system on that ride for the inverted parts.  Hurts the top of my lefts.  It is also rough, but not as rough as TNT.  Last time we were down there I was reading that it had a retrack done and does not have inversions, so I gave it a go.  It is really smooth and a whole lot of fun.  Probably one of my favorite coasters now.